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Winfreda Donald

Future Hope

Synopsis

Book Three of Long Shadows series: In 1998, Freya travels to the rugged north-west of the Scotland, seeking emotional healing after a stressful volunteering mission in famine-affected southern Sudan. As her health and energy are restored she receives a strange prophecy that guides her to discover family connections through new friendships and a journal penned by her Irish grandfather’s cousin. Fate turns in her favour as she travels to Holland and Denmark and South Africa before returning to Sudan. Against all odds, there is another bitter-sweet encounter with her first love. He is married – she knows there is no future – but they are able to clear past misunderstandings. Will their next meeting paint a different future?

Author Biography

Winfreda turned to writing in retirement, after a long career in the helping professions followed by many years working in public sector environments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Australia. Fiction is her joy as a writer using the pen-name of Winfreda Donald. Her reading is wide-ranging with a preference for family-oriented stories, some adventure, historical fiction, biography and works around the lives of authors and the art and science of creativity.
Time with family and friends is treasured.

Author Insight

Unravelling the past?

Freya's need to uncover both the opaque family history on her mother's side and a reason for her grandmother's secrecy about her life takes her to Eilean Donan Castle.
As part of my research for the story, the Castle visit was a highlight. I was so entranced by its location and history that it ended up shaping the plot in ways I had not foreseen. One of the advantages of allowing a story-line to evolve.
In this extract Freya develops a theory for her grandmother's bitterness. In following scenes, a chance meeting in the castle cafe leads Freya deeper into the story of her Scots grandparents' lives.

Book Excerpt

Future Hope

PART TWO

Discoveries

Chapter eight

November 29, 1998 – Dornie: The quivering reflections of the mountains on the other side of the loch and the castle on its island in the foreground lulled Freya into reverie. The air was clear. Blue and purple and green peace surrounded her, blocking out the chatter of the seemingly endless stream of tourists who were striding or straggling their way towards Eilean Donan Castle from three buses.

From her picnic blanket on the grass near the edge of the water, Freya immersed herself in remembered scraps of Gramma’s story – the odd thing Nessie had gleaned, Mama’s second-hand tales, the sparse information from the lawyer dealing with the cottage inheritance, and the contradictory jumble of Gramma’s dementia garbling. She would have heard none of it if the old woman had remembered who she was talking with.

Unsure if Gramma really had met Dougal here, Freya imagined how it might have been if it was the place, trying to picture their trysts and secrets and plans. . . . Had Gramma become a sour old woman because of the loss of a deep love born in this romantic place? Who really was Dougal, her mysterious grandfather? Freya focussed, seeking some sense of him, but there was nothing. Had he charmed Agnes or had she charmed him?

Freya thought about Mama’s excuses for Gramma’s behaviour. Sure, loss could twist a person. And poverty could lead to compulsive thrift long after the need had passed. Even as she tried for compassion, mind whispers over-rode the defence – others with even more traumatic experiences than Gramma’s had continued their lives by acting with love and generosity. She thought of Cook at Arif who had been abducted, raped multiple times, enslaved, lost her husband and two children to violence, but had found a way to be thankful, kind and hospitable in her poverty. How sad that the same base of Christianity had worked in such different ways for the two women.

Another whisper leaked in. Although now damaged beyond repair, Cook’s original family and culture had been strong and nurturing. Was that the key? Hadn’t Agnes once hinted she’d been rejected by her father? That would have happened before she was widowed and lost security. . . . The reverie went on. . . . Suddenly Angela’s words surfaced. What had she meant when she said be ready?